Topic of the Issue: POTENTIALITY, METAPHORICS, ETAPHYSICS
Issue editor: Kristiyan Enchev
CONTENTS & Abstracts & Keywords
Boyan Manchev – Desiring Potentiality (For a Dynamic Ontology)
Abstract: This article discusses aspects of transformationalist materialism, or modal ontology, attempting to synthetically present its program, as introduced in my books The Body-Metamorphosis (2007), La métamorphose et l'instant - Désorganisation de la vie (2009) and especially L'altération du monde (2009). Today the crucial philosophical question of materialism is posed, as always, imperatively and urgently, and under radically transformed conditions. What will be the future destiny of matter, given that a quasi-organic substance is violently imposed on the world? Is materialistic thought still possible in this seemingly immaterial world?
In clear opposition to the new para-materialist or quasi-materialist obsessions with “objects”, I believe that the question regarding the matter of the world, the modalities of its expansion and transformations - in other words, the question of “things” – is, paradoxically, crucial today primarily as an extension and radicalization of the question of subjectivity, and hence of agencies and forces; thereby, the political question of decision, rupture and change is also radicalized. Hence, the central question I pose is the question of change, the question of movement, the question of the dialectical connection between thing and process, thing and change. This way of reflecting on the issue tries to approach the premisses of the decisive questions of contemporary philosophy, science and politics. What is a subject, or in a more general perspective, what is an agent? What is process? What is change? What is it that remains unchanged? What is persistence? What is decision? What is the force of desire? What is the desire of the things, the desire of matter?
Keywords: Transformationist Materialism, Dynamic Ontology, matter, potentiality, desire, force, change, movement, modality, reflexivity, persistence
Darin Tenev – Potentialities of the Figure: Between Narrative Characters and Rhetorical Devices
Abstract: The understanding of “literary figure” is often divided between the narrative character and the rhetorical device. Both meanings are often operatively employed and thematically analysed in contemporary philosophy. The first part of this essay is focused on the effects stemming from the generalization of the role of metaphor and the correlative reduction of the figure in present-day Bulgarian philosophy, with a particular stress on the notion of metaphorical potentiality, introduced by Kristiyan Enchev, and of metaphorical effect, introduced by Dimitar Vatsov. The second part of the essay discusses the use of literary characters (such as Antigone, Don Juan, Bartleby, etc.) in philosophical texts, the main claim being that this use reveals the transfiguration of narrative figures into rhetorical figures, related to the difference between narrative potentiality and character potentiality.
Keywords: figure, literary character, metaphor, allegory, potentiality, philosophy and literature.
Kristiyan Enchev – Potentiality of Released Time (Additional Touches to the Idea of a Possible Virtualetic Metamorphysics)
Abstact. In my article, I introduce the idea of “broken” imagination, splitting it into force and forcelessness. Force – as far as an image, in its plasticity, is released for kinship. Forcelessness – imagination itself comes into contact with the impossible, which in itself is unimaginable. The element of singularity coming from the imagining entity has a weakening effect on the imagination, “weakens” with respect to singular specifics, this being a “weakness” of this particular (subjective) singularity. The forcelessness of the imagination, in turn, carries a un-predefined possibility to create kinship ties between imagery contents as “released time”. The idea of a form without substance that constantly transforms itself raises the question of the truth of the virtual being of the self-transforming form: this is the meaning of à neologistic nomination of the reformed virtualism – virtualetic metamorphysics.
Keywords: broken imagination, force, forcelessness, self-transforming form, virtualetic metamorphysics.
Abstract: This article discusses aspects of transformationalist materialism, or modal ontology, attempting to synthetically present its program, as introduced in my books The Body-Metamorphosis (2007), La métamorphose et l'instant - Désorganisation de la vie (2009) and especially L'altération du monde (2009). Today the crucial philosophical question of materialism is posed, as always, imperatively and urgently, and under radically transformed conditions. What will be the future destiny of matter, given that a quasi-organic substance is violently imposed on the world? Is materialistic thought still possible in this seemingly immaterial world?
In clear opposition to the new para-materialist or quasi-materialist obsessions with “objects”, I believe that the question regarding the matter of the world, the modalities of its expansion and transformations - in other words, the question of “things” – is, paradoxically, crucial today primarily as an extension and radicalization of the question of subjectivity, and hence of agencies and forces; thereby, the political question of decision, rupture and change is also radicalized. Hence, the central question I pose is the question of change, the question of movement, the question of the dialectical connection between thing and process, thing and change. This way of reflecting on the issue tries to approach the premisses of the decisive questions of contemporary philosophy, science and politics. What is a subject, or in a more general perspective, what is an agent? What is process? What is change? What is it that remains unchanged? What is persistence? What is decision? What is the force of desire? What is the desire of the things, the desire of matter?
Keywords: Transformationist Materialism, Dynamic Ontology, matter, potentiality, desire, force, change, movement, modality, reflexivity, persistence
Darin Tenev – Potentialities of the Figure: Between Narrative Characters and Rhetorical Devices
Abstract: The understanding of “literary figure” is often divided between the narrative character and the rhetorical device. Both meanings are often operatively employed and thematically analysed in contemporary philosophy. The first part of this essay is focused on the effects stemming from the generalization of the role of metaphor and the correlative reduction of the figure in present-day Bulgarian philosophy, with a particular stress on the notion of metaphorical potentiality, introduced by Kristiyan Enchev, and of metaphorical effect, introduced by Dimitar Vatsov. The second part of the essay discusses the use of literary characters (such as Antigone, Don Juan, Bartleby, etc.) in philosophical texts, the main claim being that this use reveals the transfiguration of narrative figures into rhetorical figures, related to the difference between narrative potentiality and character potentiality.
Keywords: figure, literary character, metaphor, allegory, potentiality, philosophy and literature.
Kristiyan Enchev – Potentiality of Released Time (Additional Touches to the Idea of a Possible Virtualetic Metamorphysics)
Abstact. In my article, I introduce the idea of “broken” imagination, splitting it into force and forcelessness. Force – as far as an image, in its plasticity, is released for kinship. Forcelessness – imagination itself comes into contact with the impossible, which in itself is unimaginable. The element of singularity coming from the imagining entity has a weakening effect on the imagination, “weakens” with respect to singular specifics, this being a “weakness” of this particular (subjective) singularity. The forcelessness of the imagination, in turn, carries a un-predefined possibility to create kinship ties between imagery contents as “released time”. The idea of a form without substance that constantly transforms itself raises the question of the truth of the virtual being of the self-transforming form: this is the meaning of à neologistic nomination of the reformed virtualism – virtualetic metamorphysics.
Keywords: broken imagination, force, forcelessness, self-transforming form, virtualetic metamorphysics.
Valentin Kanawrow – Rediscovering Kant through Foucault in the Perspective of the Ontology of Actuality and the Reality of Philosophy
Abstract: Foucault tenaciously insists that his philosophy be viewed as a continuation of Kant's critical philosophizing. But he sharply distinguishes the critical philosophy as an analytics of truth from the subjective critical thinking of the individual philosopher. Thus, Foucault makes a double error: he eliminates the heuristic metaphysical element of the transcendental conceptuality and he turns his back to the productive synthetic character of Kant's critique. Foucault subjectifies the critique to the extreme, as he totally excludes from it the transcendence and the formal power of thinking. According to him, philosophy does not search for the truth about things. Its reality is reduced to ascesis, and the only thing left to the philosopher is truthful public speech. Thus, Foucault has no right to regard himself as a continuer of Kant's critique. In Kant, the ontology of actuality is transcendental, and the reality of philosophy is Enlightenment itself, above all as a product of ontologically constitutive formal critical thinking.
Keywords: Kant, Foucault, critique, thinking, Aufklärung, ontology of actuality, reality of philosophy.
Paul Geyer – Machiavelli's Ethics: The Prince and The Mandrake
Abstract: In the language of theory and drama, Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527) continues the normative discourse of Boccaccio's novels and at the same time marks the differentiation between the political and the private spheres, which began in the 14th century. In his treatise The Prince (written around 1513), Machiavelli outlines the foundations of a modern political ethics, and in the comedy The Mandrake (written around 1518) he shows how the Medieval normative system has turned into an ideology. He also delineates a modern private ethics that goes far into the future; in the course of modernity, this ethics remains dialectically related to the ethics of the political. The message of The Prince is frequently reduced to a purely “Machiavellian” theory of power and success, and The Mandrake is interpreted as an illustration of The Prince. However, Machiavelli is not a “Machiavellian”, and The Mandrake is not just a political allegory.
Keywords: Machiavelli, political ethics, private ethics, value-rationality, instrumental rationality, good governance, Renaissance comedy, early modern subjectivity.
Victoria Kirilova – Metaphorics of Taste: Proust and Êant
Abstract. Our assumption is that the aesthetic concept of taste is a metaphor. Aesthetic perception occurs precisely when taste is understood as something different from tasting, although it is metaphorically connected precisely with the latter. As a metaphor, taste arises through both the similarity and the difference between concept and sensation, so that the indirect meaning overbuilds the literal one without negating it, and the relationship between the two remains. We consider taste as a metaphor in Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time. In our view, the important aspect here is the relationship in question and the distinction drawn between state of mind and sensation. We are referring to the sensory dimension of taste (tasting) and its metaphorical transformation into concept and experience. It is a basic aspect, which actually marks the beginning of In Search of Lost Time. In the first part, entitled Combray, the narrator talks about the taste of a small cake called “petite madeleine” and the unconscious reason which provokes the pleasure caused by an extraordinary similarity. The same episode is examined in Time Regained as part of the overall conception of In Search of Lost Time. The sudden similarity occurs between two sensations and between two otherwise different moments. Thus, the particular state is identified, whereby an unknown but very valuable essence is expressed. We assume that in the episode of the small madeleine, taste actually represents the way of manifestation of all the moments associated with the advantage of involuntary memory (la memoire involontaire), insofar as through it is manifested the hidden nature of things that had not been experienced before. This is possible, even though the manifestation of the essence has no logical explanation and the unknown state transcends the boundaries of conceivable experience. We associate this idea with Kant's aesthetic concept of taste, which is a metaphor, because of the similarity of characteristics, and insofar as the metaphor expresses essence in In Search of Lost Time.
Keywords: taste, metaphor, madeleine, involuntary memory, Immanuel Kant, Marcel Proust.
Vyara Popova – Åquivalent and Ìetaphor Abstract: The article compares Max Black's views on metaphor as substitution, comparison and interplay. The author refers to Alfred Stiåglitz's theory of equivalents as a demonstration of Black's interplay theory, showing that, in some aspects, the theory of equivalents has a broader and deeper creative potential. The article presents the development of the theory of equivalents in the works of Bernard Stiågler, Minor White, and George Legràdy.
Keywords: analogy, proportion, equivalent, relation, interplay, metaphor, association, substitution point of view, comparison point of view, interplay theory, theory of equivalent.
Keywords: Kant, Foucault, critique, thinking, Aufklärung, ontology of actuality, reality of philosophy.
Paul Geyer – Machiavelli's Ethics: The Prince and The Mandrake
Abstract: In the language of theory and drama, Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527) continues the normative discourse of Boccaccio's novels and at the same time marks the differentiation between the political and the private spheres, which began in the 14th century. In his treatise The Prince (written around 1513), Machiavelli outlines the foundations of a modern political ethics, and in the comedy The Mandrake (written around 1518) he shows how the Medieval normative system has turned into an ideology. He also delineates a modern private ethics that goes far into the future; in the course of modernity, this ethics remains dialectically related to the ethics of the political. The message of The Prince is frequently reduced to a purely “Machiavellian” theory of power and success, and The Mandrake is interpreted as an illustration of The Prince. However, Machiavelli is not a “Machiavellian”, and The Mandrake is not just a political allegory.
Keywords: Machiavelli, political ethics, private ethics, value-rationality, instrumental rationality, good governance, Renaissance comedy, early modern subjectivity.
Victoria Kirilova – Metaphorics of Taste: Proust and Êant
Abstract. Our assumption is that the aesthetic concept of taste is a metaphor. Aesthetic perception occurs precisely when taste is understood as something different from tasting, although it is metaphorically connected precisely with the latter. As a metaphor, taste arises through both the similarity and the difference between concept and sensation, so that the indirect meaning overbuilds the literal one without negating it, and the relationship between the two remains. We consider taste as a metaphor in Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time. In our view, the important aspect here is the relationship in question and the distinction drawn between state of mind and sensation. We are referring to the sensory dimension of taste (tasting) and its metaphorical transformation into concept and experience. It is a basic aspect, which actually marks the beginning of In Search of Lost Time. In the first part, entitled Combray, the narrator talks about the taste of a small cake called “petite madeleine” and the unconscious reason which provokes the pleasure caused by an extraordinary similarity. The same episode is examined in Time Regained as part of the overall conception of In Search of Lost Time. The sudden similarity occurs between two sensations and between two otherwise different moments. Thus, the particular state is identified, whereby an unknown but very valuable essence is expressed. We assume that in the episode of the small madeleine, taste actually represents the way of manifestation of all the moments associated with the advantage of involuntary memory (la memoire involontaire), insofar as through it is manifested the hidden nature of things that had not been experienced before. This is possible, even though the manifestation of the essence has no logical explanation and the unknown state transcends the boundaries of conceivable experience. We associate this idea with Kant's aesthetic concept of taste, which is a metaphor, because of the similarity of characteristics, and insofar as the metaphor expresses essence in In Search of Lost Time.
Keywords: taste, metaphor, madeleine, involuntary memory, Immanuel Kant, Marcel Proust.
Vyara Popova – Åquivalent and Ìetaphor Abstract: The article compares Max Black's views on metaphor as substitution, comparison and interplay. The author refers to Alfred Stiåglitz's theory of equivalents as a demonstration of Black's interplay theory, showing that, in some aspects, the theory of equivalents has a broader and deeper creative potential. The article presents the development of the theory of equivalents in the works of Bernard Stiågler, Minor White, and George Legràdy.
Keywords: analogy, proportion, equivalent, relation, interplay, metaphor, association, substitution point of view, comparison point of view, interplay theory, theory of equivalent.
Anguel S. Stefanov – Theorizing about the Origin of the Universe
Abstract: The article argues that theorizing about the origin of the universe is imbued with metaphorical language. Only such a language can produce intuitive representations about some cosmic “cause” of the birth of the universe. Nor can it be otherwise, when one strives to say something about the genesis of everything – whether the theorizing be couched in theological or in purely scientific concepts.
Keywords: universe, cause of the emergence of the universe, multiverse, anthropic principle, cosmic landscape.
Silviya Kristeva – Structures of the Possible and their Metaphoricity
Abstract: The possible has become a distinct construction in philosophical theories, but this would imply that it should be amenable to structuring in certain ways and figures, which could be used as instruments in theoretical construction. The article offers several models of the possible, built with their original and leading metaphoricity. Starting from Aristotle's model of the possible, it is interesting to see how this view of “the possibility of a thing” leads to “the concept of force” in Hobbes and Leibniz. The construction of the possible is especially interesting in that it is like a field, an area, where multiple things have their positions. Here, of course, the leading viewpoint is the construction of space proposed by Hobbes, but no less interesting is Leibniz's critique of absolute empty space as a “sensorium”, Newton's amazing metaphor. Introduced as a field, a universum, the possible requires to be filled up, requires its own “spectrum”, “degrees” (in Kant's term), with steps taken and inner construction works done to intensify and organize it, and attains Leibniz's famous concept of “the best of all possible words”. Finally, the article structures the unchained connections and correlatives in the triad of “possibility-actuality-necessity”, with its models and metaphoricity in Hobbes, Leibniz and Kant, and offers a description of the three modal areas in one common and absolute relation.
Keywords: Hobbes, Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, cause, force, super-possibility, triangulations between possibility, actuality and necessity.
Kosta Benchev – Modality and Individuality: On Freedom as the Substance of the Individual in Leibniz
Abstract: Based on the presence of a few genuinely Leibnizean themes in the post-anti-metaphysical situation of contemporary philosophy, this article tries to establish a connection between notions such as “being”, “perception” and “freedom” through the prism of a modal approach to ontology. A series of short writings by Leibniz, scattered through all periods of his thought, are closely read here. The principle of sufficient reason (determining the uniqueness of each and every thing) is seen as responsible for a potential coincidence of the usual modal concepts, which is the only way for humans to make their risky choices between being free-and-correct and being free-and-mistaken in their behavior. Since, according to the Leibnizian perspective of “monads”, persons are understood as “individuals”, it follows that individuals must turn attention to “simplicity” both within and outside themselves; the acting agents are viewed as objects of themselves, having no “parts” but rather participating in “relations” that are constituted within a void (which does not really exist according to Leibniz) and a continuum (in the metaphysical sense of the two terms). If we see that this position corresponds to the tension that exists between the urges or the nature of a creator who is to be conceived of in the traditional onto-theological manner, the conclusion we draw is that the only difference between humans and the Christian God of Leibniz is that the latter disposes of more power, energy and dynamics than the former, due to the “fact” that humans are only “images” (but not parts) of the “absolute”. Along the line of this attempt at a concise but systematic survey of Leibniz's modal approach to matters of morality within the German mystical tradition, the article also offers relevant interpretations on the topic, coming from diverse philosophical perspectives (Russell, Heidegger, Deleuze, Harman, etc.) and from recent debates.Keywords: Leibniz, modalities, individual, monads, monadology, free will, freedom, relations, simples, wholes, parts.
Valentin Asparuhov – For that, which does not exist
Abstract: The article aims to set and consider the problem of demarcation between both, formal and philosophical logic. It grows like a series of different stories where the point of philosophical logic is mentioned. The failure to demarcate its field is in the basis of many of the difficulties that arise when Russell tries to form his own conception for logical analysis and for observing the logical data. An attempt is proposed to locate and elucidate some transcendental components that could be visible when we are focused on Russell's analytical practice. Although some thoughts are polemical, in my opinion, they have the power to form an impulse for outlining the aria of philosophical logic. Keywords: philosophical logic, philosophy of logic, demarcation, logical data and experience.
Abstract: The article argues that theorizing about the origin of the universe is imbued with metaphorical language. Only such a language can produce intuitive representations about some cosmic “cause” of the birth of the universe. Nor can it be otherwise, when one strives to say something about the genesis of everything – whether the theorizing be couched in theological or in purely scientific concepts.
Keywords: universe, cause of the emergence of the universe, multiverse, anthropic principle, cosmic landscape.
Silviya Kristeva – Structures of the Possible and their Metaphoricity
Abstract: The possible has become a distinct construction in philosophical theories, but this would imply that it should be amenable to structuring in certain ways and figures, which could be used as instruments in theoretical construction. The article offers several models of the possible, built with their original and leading metaphoricity. Starting from Aristotle's model of the possible, it is interesting to see how this view of “the possibility of a thing” leads to “the concept of force” in Hobbes and Leibniz. The construction of the possible is especially interesting in that it is like a field, an area, where multiple things have their positions. Here, of course, the leading viewpoint is the construction of space proposed by Hobbes, but no less interesting is Leibniz's critique of absolute empty space as a “sensorium”, Newton's amazing metaphor. Introduced as a field, a universum, the possible requires to be filled up, requires its own “spectrum”, “degrees” (in Kant's term), with steps taken and inner construction works done to intensify and organize it, and attains Leibniz's famous concept of “the best of all possible words”. Finally, the article structures the unchained connections and correlatives in the triad of “possibility-actuality-necessity”, with its models and metaphoricity in Hobbes, Leibniz and Kant, and offers a description of the three modal areas in one common and absolute relation.
Keywords: Hobbes, Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, cause, force, super-possibility, triangulations between possibility, actuality and necessity.
Kosta Benchev – Modality and Individuality: On Freedom as the Substance of the Individual in Leibniz
Abstract: Based on the presence of a few genuinely Leibnizean themes in the post-anti-metaphysical situation of contemporary philosophy, this article tries to establish a connection between notions such as “being”, “perception” and “freedom” through the prism of a modal approach to ontology. A series of short writings by Leibniz, scattered through all periods of his thought, are closely read here. The principle of sufficient reason (determining the uniqueness of each and every thing) is seen as responsible for a potential coincidence of the usual modal concepts, which is the only way for humans to make their risky choices between being free-and-correct and being free-and-mistaken in their behavior. Since, according to the Leibnizian perspective of “monads”, persons are understood as “individuals”, it follows that individuals must turn attention to “simplicity” both within and outside themselves; the acting agents are viewed as objects of themselves, having no “parts” but rather participating in “relations” that are constituted within a void (which does not really exist according to Leibniz) and a continuum (in the metaphysical sense of the two terms). If we see that this position corresponds to the tension that exists between the urges or the nature of a creator who is to be conceived of in the traditional onto-theological manner, the conclusion we draw is that the only difference between humans and the Christian God of Leibniz is that the latter disposes of more power, energy and dynamics than the former, due to the “fact” that humans are only “images” (but not parts) of the “absolute”. Along the line of this attempt at a concise but systematic survey of Leibniz's modal approach to matters of morality within the German mystical tradition, the article also offers relevant interpretations on the topic, coming from diverse philosophical perspectives (Russell, Heidegger, Deleuze, Harman, etc.) and from recent debates.Keywords: Leibniz, modalities, individual, monads, monadology, free will, freedom, relations, simples, wholes, parts.
Valentin Asparuhov – For that, which does not exist
Abstract: The article aims to set and consider the problem of demarcation between both, formal and philosophical logic. It grows like a series of different stories where the point of philosophical logic is mentioned. The failure to demarcate its field is in the basis of many of the difficulties that arise when Russell tries to form his own conception for logical analysis and for observing the logical data. An attempt is proposed to locate and elucidate some transcendental components that could be visible when we are focused on Russell's analytical practice. Although some thoughts are polemical, in my opinion, they have the power to form an impulse for outlining the aria of philosophical logic. Keywords: philosophical logic, philosophy of logic, demarcation, logical data and experience.
Silvia Borisova – Is “Absolute Mythology” an “Absolute Metaphorology”? The Bridge between Losev and Blumenberg
Abstract: The article seeks to find and highlight the conceptual links between Losev's “absolute mythology” and Blumenberg's “absolute metaphorology”, viewed in the context of Blumenberg's work on myth. For this purpose, the simultaneous affinity and contradistinction of myth and metaphor is taken as a support; the two are seen in their inevitable dialectic and in the ontological impossibility of one existing without the other. This dialectic marked Schelling's idea of primordial (pre-mythical, pre-metaphorical) monotheism, of consubstantiality with otherness. For it's part, Schelling's philosophy of myth produces a kind of “mythology of the lost paradise”, which the author outlines in the article, beyond the formulations given in Schelling's early and later writings. The author thereby proposes a possible way of consolidating the bridge between Losev's and Blumenberg's ideas.
Keywords: myth, metaphor, absolute mythology, absolute metaphorology, Losev, Blumenberg, Schelling, mythology of lost paradise.
Nevena Krumova – The Metaphors of Eros
Abstract: The author aims to study the manifestations of Eros as an element of the virtual. The metaphor is the field, the language, in which we speak of the phenomena of the virtual. Hence, the article studies the metaphors of Eros. However, Eros has two sides – there is an objectivated and a non-objectivated Eros (earth and heavenly Eros). Therefore, a question arises: do the metaphors of the non-objectivated Eros differ from the metaphors of the objectivated Eros? To ingress the specificity of such a study, we will review in greater depth the metaphors relevant to Eros used by certain authors in Russian religious philosophy. The article discusses how schematism works for these metaphors with respect to the objectivated and non-objectivated aspects of Eros.
Keywords: Eros, metaphor, virtual.
Plamen Antov – Henry David Thoreau Between
Abstract: This essay situates H. D. Thoreau in a row of large cultural aporiae. The author argues an uncommon approach to Thoreau, not in the Kantian key of Transcendentalism, but as situated at the midpoint where Transcendentalism meets its antipode – corporality and reality: the author views the gesture Walden as a hidden expression of the kind of activeness that is of the essence of modern bourgeois-capitalist aggression against nature.
Thoreau is seen as an American proto-philosopher who revolts against the European Cartesian metaphysization of philosophy, a trend whose ultimate manifestation is precisely Kant. Thoreau is seen as restoring the primordial totality of philosophy, similarly as the ancient philosopher who, in order to refute the assertion of his opponent that there is no motion in the world, simply stood up and took a few steps. – The gesture Walden is interpreted as an attempt to walk back those steps. As an attempt to restore the reality of the world, which has been lost in the course of civilization (seen as a process of increasingly dense veiling of reality under a network of symbols-simulations). Walden is at the centre of this plot, personified by two mutually contrary cultural myths – the “European” Hamlet and the “American” Robinson Crusoe.
Thus, on the other hand, Thoreau is seen as situated at the beginning of American Pragmatism considered as a philosophy of the “lower part” of the body (Bakhtin), of the thinking stomach.
This fundamental non-unmetaphysical characteristic of the American cultural genotype (world view) – the domination of bodily activity over reflection – has been paraphrased by a number of US presidents in the 20th and 21st century as the maxim “Bomb first, seek arguments later”. Yet at the same time, precisely in moving away from the European tradition, Thoreau finds himself at the point where the East begins.
In Thoreau's gesture Walden, the author finds and interprets the potential of this whole complex of dialectically “sublating” aporiae (at the core of which is the radical anti-cultural gesture, which is also a radical cultural gesture).
Keywords: H. D. Thoreau – Transcendentalism – Kant; American Transcendentalism – American Pragmatism; metaphysics – reality; the “European” Hamlet – the “American” Robinson Crusoe; Europe – America; West – East; culture – anti-culture.
Kaloyan Dimitrov – Metaphor and Parabolic Reality
Abstract: The article aims to indicate the aspects of reality we measure daily with our own imagination, perception and reason. The hidden reality inside that reality appears within life's emanations. What we think, what we do, what we experience, refer to a hidden reality unknown to us; yet this parabolic reality is active everywhere and always. The main way to capture this new extra-dimensional world is through metaphor or, more generally, through tropology in the arts. We use tropes to reach the hidden levels of our reality, because they are infinite and produce paradoxes that lead to parabolic reality.
Keywords: parabolic reality, tropology, metaphor, extra-dimensional world, hidden levels of reality.
Abstract: The article seeks to find and highlight the conceptual links between Losev's “absolute mythology” and Blumenberg's “absolute metaphorology”, viewed in the context of Blumenberg's work on myth. For this purpose, the simultaneous affinity and contradistinction of myth and metaphor is taken as a support; the two are seen in their inevitable dialectic and in the ontological impossibility of one existing without the other. This dialectic marked Schelling's idea of primordial (pre-mythical, pre-metaphorical) monotheism, of consubstantiality with otherness. For it's part, Schelling's philosophy of myth produces a kind of “mythology of the lost paradise”, which the author outlines in the article, beyond the formulations given in Schelling's early and later writings. The author thereby proposes a possible way of consolidating the bridge between Losev's and Blumenberg's ideas.
Keywords: myth, metaphor, absolute mythology, absolute metaphorology, Losev, Blumenberg, Schelling, mythology of lost paradise.
Nevena Krumova – The Metaphors of Eros
Abstract: The author aims to study the manifestations of Eros as an element of the virtual. The metaphor is the field, the language, in which we speak of the phenomena of the virtual. Hence, the article studies the metaphors of Eros. However, Eros has two sides – there is an objectivated and a non-objectivated Eros (earth and heavenly Eros). Therefore, a question arises: do the metaphors of the non-objectivated Eros differ from the metaphors of the objectivated Eros? To ingress the specificity of such a study, we will review in greater depth the metaphors relevant to Eros used by certain authors in Russian religious philosophy. The article discusses how schematism works for these metaphors with respect to the objectivated and non-objectivated aspects of Eros.
Keywords: Eros, metaphor, virtual.
Plamen Antov – Henry David Thoreau Between
Abstract: This essay situates H. D. Thoreau in a row of large cultural aporiae. The author argues an uncommon approach to Thoreau, not in the Kantian key of Transcendentalism, but as situated at the midpoint where Transcendentalism meets its antipode – corporality and reality: the author views the gesture Walden as a hidden expression of the kind of activeness that is of the essence of modern bourgeois-capitalist aggression against nature.
Thoreau is seen as an American proto-philosopher who revolts against the European Cartesian metaphysization of philosophy, a trend whose ultimate manifestation is precisely Kant. Thoreau is seen as restoring the primordial totality of philosophy, similarly as the ancient philosopher who, in order to refute the assertion of his opponent that there is no motion in the world, simply stood up and took a few steps. – The gesture Walden is interpreted as an attempt to walk back those steps. As an attempt to restore the reality of the world, which has been lost in the course of civilization (seen as a process of increasingly dense veiling of reality under a network of symbols-simulations). Walden is at the centre of this plot, personified by two mutually contrary cultural myths – the “European” Hamlet and the “American” Robinson Crusoe.
Thus, on the other hand, Thoreau is seen as situated at the beginning of American Pragmatism considered as a philosophy of the “lower part” of the body (Bakhtin), of the thinking stomach.
This fundamental non-unmetaphysical characteristic of the American cultural genotype (world view) – the domination of bodily activity over reflection – has been paraphrased by a number of US presidents in the 20th and 21st century as the maxim “Bomb first, seek arguments later”. Yet at the same time, precisely in moving away from the European tradition, Thoreau finds himself at the point where the East begins.
In Thoreau's gesture Walden, the author finds and interprets the potential of this whole complex of dialectically “sublating” aporiae (at the core of which is the radical anti-cultural gesture, which is also a radical cultural gesture).
Keywords: H. D. Thoreau – Transcendentalism – Kant; American Transcendentalism – American Pragmatism; metaphysics – reality; the “European” Hamlet – the “American” Robinson Crusoe; Europe – America; West – East; culture – anti-culture.
Kaloyan Dimitrov – Metaphor and Parabolic Reality
Abstract: The article aims to indicate the aspects of reality we measure daily with our own imagination, perception and reason. The hidden reality inside that reality appears within life's emanations. What we think, what we do, what we experience, refer to a hidden reality unknown to us; yet this parabolic reality is active everywhere and always. The main way to capture this new extra-dimensional world is through metaphor or, more generally, through tropology in the arts. We use tropes to reach the hidden levels of our reality, because they are infinite and produce paradoxes that lead to parabolic reality.
Keywords: parabolic reality, tropology, metaphor, extra-dimensional world, hidden levels of reality.
Andrey Leshkov – Memory as a Problem of Thought (Concerning a Noematics of Forgetting)
Abstract. Here we attempt to delineate a vanishing point of consciousness, the point where its contents are lost track of. This leads to a phenomenology of forgetting, which impresses an orientation to that which acts preconsciously within consciousness itself. When the vanishing point is reached, that point becomes its own other. This recession marks its flowing-away in time. However, the point is wedged between the limits of horizons. In the reduced world, that which is encountered horizontally is connected by the I can as a mode of access. For an I, all the horizons are modalities of forgetting. Its prevalence testifies to the finitude inherent in the ἔκστασις of consciousness. Here, cognition itself is based on a forgetting: anything known as enduring is pitted against the forgotten. And We have to face the forgotten in order to reveal forgetting's contemporaneity with reflection. But in forgetting, I must be aware of forgetting: I is ineluctably implicated in cognizance (as illustrated by an approach to Husserѕs intertwined themes of finitude and temporality). The phenomenology of forgetting points towards the situation of individuals and puts them vis-a-vis it in a reflective responsiveness, relating them to thinking in such a way that they can know themselves as being present in their thoughts. We should reconsider, then, the conviction that the transcendental ego no longer represents an abiding insight.
Keywords: finitude, historicity, Husserl, meaning-constitution, phenomenology of forgetting, temporality.
Vladimir Radenkov – The Ecstatic Temporality as a Common Root of δύναμις and ἐνέργεια
Abstract. The article offers an interpretation of the two Aristotelian concepts in the perspective of their productive assimilation by Heidegger. Primary to this interpretation is the assumption that the German philosopher reveals the possibility of thinking of δύναμις; and ἐνέργεια; as different and co-belonging aspects of the unitary structural integrity of the way in which the disclosure of the existing in its being is effectuated, a disclosure that is constitutive for human existence. First of all, based on the texts that present Heidegger's reception most fully and coherently, the article attempts to show that, according to Heidegger's interpretation, δύναμις is essentially an ec-static possibility of existence and as such it has its own constraint in terms of being located in the perspective toward some production (εργον), i.e. it is performed as ἐνέργεια. Further on, the article presents Heidegger's understanding, merely alluded to by the German philosopher, that the two concepts have a common root in the so-called ecstatic temporality – together with the concept of λόγος, they are referred to the three “consubstantial” moments of this temporality. Finally, in a productive step, the article sketches the thesis that in every non-everyday reference of a human being to the existent, there is an "interference" between the available inventory of δύναμις (misinterpreted as an present possibility) and the temporal horizon (which transcends the present) of the co-belonging δύναμις and ἐνέργεια.
Keywords: δύναμις, ἐνέργεια, ειδος, λόγος, producing, ecstatic temporality, Heidegger.
Abstract. Here we attempt to delineate a vanishing point of consciousness, the point where its contents are lost track of. This leads to a phenomenology of forgetting, which impresses an orientation to that which acts preconsciously within consciousness itself. When the vanishing point is reached, that point becomes its own other. This recession marks its flowing-away in time. However, the point is wedged between the limits of horizons. In the reduced world, that which is encountered horizontally is connected by the I can as a mode of access. For an I, all the horizons are modalities of forgetting. Its prevalence testifies to the finitude inherent in the ἔκστασις of consciousness. Here, cognition itself is based on a forgetting: anything known as enduring is pitted against the forgotten. And We have to face the forgotten in order to reveal forgetting's contemporaneity with reflection. But in forgetting, I must be aware of forgetting: I is ineluctably implicated in cognizance (as illustrated by an approach to Husserѕs intertwined themes of finitude and temporality). The phenomenology of forgetting points towards the situation of individuals and puts them vis-a-vis it in a reflective responsiveness, relating them to thinking in such a way that they can know themselves as being present in their thoughts. We should reconsider, then, the conviction that the transcendental ego no longer represents an abiding insight.
Keywords: finitude, historicity, Husserl, meaning-constitution, phenomenology of forgetting, temporality.
Vladimir Radenkov – The Ecstatic Temporality as a Common Root of δύναμις and ἐνέργεια
Abstract. The article offers an interpretation of the two Aristotelian concepts in the perspective of their productive assimilation by Heidegger. Primary to this interpretation is the assumption that the German philosopher reveals the possibility of thinking of δύναμις; and ἐνέργεια; as different and co-belonging aspects of the unitary structural integrity of the way in which the disclosure of the existing in its being is effectuated, a disclosure that is constitutive for human existence. First of all, based on the texts that present Heidegger's reception most fully and coherently, the article attempts to show that, according to Heidegger's interpretation, δύναμις is essentially an ec-static possibility of existence and as such it has its own constraint in terms of being located in the perspective toward some production (εργον), i.e. it is performed as ἐνέργεια. Further on, the article presents Heidegger's understanding, merely alluded to by the German philosopher, that the two concepts have a common root in the so-called ecstatic temporality – together with the concept of λόγος, they are referred to the three “consubstantial” moments of this temporality. Finally, in a productive step, the article sketches the thesis that in every non-everyday reference of a human being to the existent, there is an "interference" between the available inventory of δύναμις (misinterpreted as an present possibility) and the temporal horizon (which transcends the present) of the co-belonging δύναμις and ἐνέργεια.
Keywords: δύναμις, ἐνέργεια, ειδος, λόγος, producing, ecstatic temporality, Heidegger.
Stefan Ivanov – What is “Persifedron”?
Abstract: The article analyzes the word and concept “Persifedron” in the context of Konstantin Pavlov's play Persifedron and of his entire oeuvre, and also in the context of the critical reception of Pavlov and the conceptual common areas his work has with certain aesthetic systems.
Keywords: potentiality, shibboleth, montage, MacGuffin.
Miroslav Hristov – The All-eater. A Solo Performance
Abstract: Scenario of the theatrical performance The Alleater. Stage director: Ani Vaseva, text: Miroslav Hristov, scene design: Georgi Sharov, sound: DataTransporter. With Galia Kostadinova and DataTransporter. The All-eater is the hard, but volatile mass in which we immerse our hand only to find that our fingers are legs and our mouths are asses. The All-eater is the edge beyond which gender, size and matter no longer matter, because it is simultaneously male, female, and in between, miniature, gigantic, consistent and fragile. Stalking in the All-eater's mouth is a sexy little black hole, blazing in its estrangement; in that hole, there is a yawning nothingness. The performance is staged by Plus, Metheor, The Fridge and Theatre Laboratory Sfumato, with the financial assistance of the Ministry of Culture of Bulgaria. (Metheor).
Keywords: theatrical performance, All-eater, mechanistic metaphysics.
Abstract: The article analyzes the word and concept “Persifedron” in the context of Konstantin Pavlov's play Persifedron and of his entire oeuvre, and also in the context of the critical reception of Pavlov and the conceptual common areas his work has with certain aesthetic systems.
Keywords: potentiality, shibboleth, montage, MacGuffin.
Miroslav Hristov – The All-eater. A Solo Performance
Abstract: Scenario of the theatrical performance The Alleater. Stage director: Ani Vaseva, text: Miroslav Hristov, scene design: Georgi Sharov, sound: DataTransporter. With Galia Kostadinova and DataTransporter. The All-eater is the hard, but volatile mass in which we immerse our hand only to find that our fingers are legs and our mouths are asses. The All-eater is the edge beyond which gender, size and matter no longer matter, because it is simultaneously male, female, and in between, miniature, gigantic, consistent and fragile. Stalking in the All-eater's mouth is a sexy little black hole, blazing in its estrangement; in that hole, there is a yawning nothingness. The performance is staged by Plus, Metheor, The Fridge and Theatre Laboratory Sfumato, with the financial assistance of the Ministry of Culture of Bulgaria. (Metheor).
Keywords: theatrical performance, All-eater, mechanistic metaphysics.
Atanaska Cholakova – Back to Metaphysics!
Vladimir Radenkov – A Review of Hristo Stoev's Eudemoniae
Rosen Lyutskanov – Talks on Logic: Thirty Years Later
Denitsa Zhelyazkova, Kristiyan Enchev – Russell's Philosophical Logic: 25 Years of Stakes and Gains
Vladimir Radenkov – A Review of Hristo Stoev's Eudemoniae
Rosen Lyutskanov – Talks on Logic: Thirty Years Later
Denitsa Zhelyazkova, Kristiyan Enchev – Russell's Philosophical Logic: 25 Years of Stakes and Gains
Erika Lazarova has passed away